PDF Summary:Greenlights, by Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey’s Greenlights is not a conventional memoir. As he neared age 50, the Oscar-winning actor revisited the journal that he had kept for the previous 35 years to see what he could learn from it. The result is this book, which combines hard-earned insights about the art of living with vivid accounts of McConaughey’s upbringing in rural Texas, his adventures in the movie business, his global travels, and his lifelong search for love and fatherhood. Part autobiography and part life-guide, Greenlights both explains and illustrates McConaughey’s philosophy of “catching greenlights”—recognizing and even creating those moments when life says “yes” and you cruise into success as you pursue your destiny. It’s valuable reading for anyone in search of an entertaining manual on finding your way in the world.

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One morning in the rainforest, after a long night of struggling to understand his identity, he awoke feeling strangely energized. Taking a walk, he came across a beautiful kaleidoscope of butterflies pulsing in formation on the jungle floor. Then he noticed the Amazon just past them. That day, he floated naked in the Amazon on his back, just like in the dream. The feeling of being cleansed and forgiven remained for the rest of his trip. Once, he thought he saw a mermaid’s tail wave at him from the river. His Amazon experience was a greenlight.

On the Road

On returning to Hollywood, Matthew wanted to continue exploring the world, so he bought a van and an RV and became an RV “full-timer,” criss-crossing the United States. He also continued with his movie career, taking meetings with directors on the road.

The Art of Bongoing Naked

After three years on the road, Matthew felt a craving for a more settled lifestyle. He ended his RV-days by renting a two-bedroom house in Austin, and it was here that one of the most notorious incidents in his life took place: his arrest when two Austin police officers barged into his apartment while he was smoking pot and playing the bongos naked. After he had spent the night in jail, a sympathetic judge dismissed all charges in return for a guilty plea for violating a sound ordinance. Matthew had to fight off gloomy feelings that day because his outlaw logic said getting caught was the worst outcome. For consolation, he called his mother, who bolstered him with her outrage at his mistreatment. He received her words as a greenlight and decided to claim the incident as part of his life journey.

Hollywood Hedonism

In 2000, Matthew felt it was time to return to the Hollywood hustle. When he accepted a high-paying offer to star opposite Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner, he entered the world of romantic comedies and a period of white-hot Hollywood excess. He moved into that legendary home to rising (and falling) stars, the Chateau Marmont, where for 18 months he enjoyed a life of hedonistic indulgence filled with late nights, endless parties, and endless friends (many of them female).

Africa and the Dogon

This period ended when Matthew had an exact repeat of his wet dream from several years earlier. This time, he pursued its meaning to Africa, where he protected his anonymity by saying his name was David. While there, he received a bracing lesson when he took sides in an argument between two men and found himself criticized by both, who told him that such confrontations aren’t about who’s “right” or “wrong” but about understanding. Matthew recognized in this a different way of communication than what Americans are used to, one based not on trying to win arguments but on trying to understand the other person.

Still pursuing his dream’s meaning, he visited the Dogon, a people in the Bandiagara Escarpment who had purportedly received knowledge from extraterrestrials long ago. In one village, the champion wrestler challenged Matthew to a match. Matthew accepted, and for two brutal rounds he held his own. When the chief declared it a tie, the villagers chanted enthusiastically, “Daouda!” (“David” in their local dialect). Matthew’s guide later told him that winning against such an opponent was really just about accepting the challenge. Matthew took this as another greenlight.

Turn the Page

When he returned to Los Angeles, Matthew realized he now had no tolerance for the Chateau’s glittery life. So he left and headed for the beach, where he lived for the next few years, trading fancy suits for shorts and a surfboard as he starred in a slew of romantic comedies. This was the period when the media rebranded him as the shirtless rom-com guy. It was fun, but after a while he began to feel as if he had become an entertainer instead of an actor. The rom-coms no longer nourished his creative spirit. He felt more deepened from his traveling than from his career. Looking for change and growth, he bought a house in the Hollywood Hills with a big yard and enough living space for a family. From one of his friends, the late Darrel Royal, football coach at the University of Texas, Matthew had learned that when you need a change, you can always “turn the page” of your life. It was this kind of page-turning transition that Matthew felt he needed.

Discovering Destiny

Almost as if on schedule, Matthew had another non-sexual wet dream: He was an 88-year-old man being visited by 22 young women, each bringing with her four children. He recognized that these were women he had loved and children he had fathered, one child for each year of his life. The dream was a greenlight, because when he woke up, he realized that whether or not he ever met and married the woman of his dreams, he could still know love and father children—his lifelong dream. He could surrender to life and trust it to do the right thing.

Meeting Camila

It was after this greenlight of surrender that the right woman showed up. Matthew met Camila in 2006 and felt instantly enraptured by her. They discovered right away that they could enjoy being quiet together just as easily as talking. It was the start of a whirlwind romance. To Matthew, it felt as if the mermaid from the Amazon ten years earlier had swum up from South America to find him. It was one of the biggest greenlights of his life.

Making a Baby

Matthew and Camila started a new life together by moving into his RV. They also started trying to get pregnant. When it happened, they cried tears of joy together. For Matthew, becoming a father was the validation of his core values, the ultimate affirmation of the transition to manhood that he had earned from his father. It was another greenlight.

When Camila was six months pregnant, Matthew realized that he needed to focus more on this new center of his life, so he shut down his film production company and record label to devote more attention to his family, his acting, and a foundation that he had started.

Becoming a Father

Matthew’s and Camila’s baby boy was born on July 7, 2008, at 6:22 p.m. Matthew’s favorite Bible verse was Matthew 6:22, so they named their son Levi, the other name for the biblical Matthew. The birth and the naming were both greenlights.

Shortly after this, they decided to move to Texas to be nearer to Kay and because Matthew wanted to raise their children there. They bought a home and nine acres on the edge of Austin. At the same time, Matthew realized that the acting roles coming his way weren’t satisfying. Strangely, his movie characters felt less vibrant than his real life. He knew it was time for another change, some kind of authentic sacrifice—especially since Camila was pregnant again.

Unbranded and Rediscovered

In Fall 2008, Matthew checked on his finances to verify whether he and his family could survive an income disruption. Then, having discussed the matter with Camila, he stopped accepting roles in romantic comedies. Over the next year, dozens of offers came in, but he declined them all. During this time, Camila gave birth to their second child. They named her Vida. For Matthew, her birth was a pure greenlight. But around the same time, the offers from Hollywood started drying up. Eventually, after 20 months of Matthew’s refusals, none came in at all.

Then something magical happened: New offers started pouring in. Matthew’s long absence had “unbranded” him, and now it seemed an inventive move to offer him grittier lead roles in the likes of Magic Mike and Killer Joe. The offers swelled to a flood, and suddenly Matthew was back in business. In one of his ultimate career greenlights, Hollywood “rediscovered” him.

Dallas Buyers Club and the McConaissance

Back in 2007, Matthew had gained control of the Dallas Buyers Club screenplay and had nursed a desire to play the lead role of Ron Woodroof ever since. Now his “rediscovery” made this a viable idea. When Dallas Buyers Club was released in 2013 to a burst of Oscar buzz, this only added momentum to a term the press had started using some months earlier: The McConaissance. Unbeknownst to anybody but Matthew, this was actually a word that he had made up himself and fed to a journalist at that year’s Sundance Film Festival.

The Adventure of Marriage

Although Matthew and Camila had moved in together and started a family, they had not yet talked about marriage. When Levi was three, he asked Matthew why he, his sister Vida, and Matthew all had the last name McConaughey but their mother didn’t. This led Matthew to realize that it was high time he got over his fear of marriage. After a conversation with his pastor helped him understand marriage not as a final destination but a new journey, Matthew proposed to Camila in 2011.

They held the ceremony in 2012 amid a three-day weekend celebration at their house, surrounded by 88 of their closest friends. For Matthew, their marriage was a greenlight. He felt that he now had even more of a future ahead of him, even more to live for.

Their third child, a son, Livingston Alves McConaughey, was born on December 28, 2012. It was another greenlight. Matthew felt more fulfilled than he ever had before. Whereas ideas had always inspired him before, now he felt inspired by life itself.

Winning the Oscar

At the same time, Matthew’s professional career was seriously heating up. In 2014 he swept the Critics’ Choice, Golden Globes, Independent Spirit, Screen Actors Guild, and Academy Awards for best actor for his portrayal of Ron Woodroof. This seemed a validation of all the risky and difficult career choices he had made in recent years.

Being Matthew McConaughey

In the wake of his Oscar win, he made many more movies. When he realized that his movie roles felt more vital to him than his real life, he knew it was time yet again for a change. It was time to turn his life into his favorite movie—to write his own script and direct his own story. It was time to catch the hero that he had always been chasing: his future self. It was time to live his legacy now—to quit acting like Matthew McConaughey and simply be Matthew McConaughey.

To do this, he gathered the scraps of his lifelong journal and created this book, combing through his resume and experiences and drawing out the insights that had formed him. As he was finishing the book in 2020, both the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd rocked the world. Matthew is convinced that at some point in the future, the red light of 2020 will turn green and reveal it as one of our greatest years, as values are intrinsically nondenominational and bipartisan (a lesson his parents taught him). In a world where so many people are divided, he says values are what unite us.

Ultimately, in Matthew’s view, the art of living goes back to the concept of greenlights. As you make choices in life and seek to catch greenlights, think about the way these choices will shape your eventual eulogy. Living this way is the surest way to fill your experience with one greenlight after another.

The McConaughey Way

Enduring lessons that Matthew drew from all of these experiences include the following. These are all insights that you can apply to your own life resume to get relative with your inevitabilities and start catching more greenlights:

• Words are values that create expectations and consequences, so use them carefully.
• The first step in learning who you are is to learn who you aren’t.
• Discover your personal “frequency,” your core of identity, and hold onto it.
• We’re here not to merely tolerate each other’s differences, but to celebrate them.
• To become an adult, and to achieve more success, you have to become less impressed with and more involved with your achievements, career, and relationships.
• Sometimes what’s important is just to make a choice—any choice—and stick with it.
• If you feel stuck in a rut, know that you have the power to change. Your life is a book, and you’re the author. You can turn the page.
• You have to define success for yourself unless you want other people to define it for you.